Platero

Platero

After a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scottish storyteller Mike Maran is bringing his breathtakingly beautiful production of Platero Travels with a Donkey to Chelmsford Cramphorn Theatre on Thursday 2 May. 

Maran teamed up with Georgian puppeteer, Nino Namitcheishvili, to create this stage version of Platero y Yo by Spanish Nobel Laureate Juan Ramón Jiménez. The show is directed by Levan Tsuladze, Artistic Director of the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi, Georgia.

The original book is a series of short prose poems painting an affectionate portrait of Moguer, a small town in the Andalusian countryside where the poet lived with Platero, his little silver donkey, at the turn of the last century. In 1960 the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco wrote a suite of classical guitar music for the great classical guitar player, Segovia, to accompany some of the stories and Craig Ogden, the Australian best selling artist, has especially recorded the music to accompany this production.

Mike Maran specializes in shows combining storytelling with music with previous productions including Mahler Song and Dance Man, A Christmas Carol and A Funny Valentine as well as two long-running shows - Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Italia ‘n’ Caledonia. He originally conceived the idea for Platero y Yo  in 2009 when he first met Nino Namitcheishvili. 

“I had always loved the stories for their simplicity and humanity and had thought about how to stage them. The music perfectly reflects the poetry of the stories but I felt it needed a visual element to go alongside the spoken word and the music. When I met Nino it all fell into place, especially when I discovered that the book had been translated into Georgian and was a favourite of hers.”

Since that first meeting Mike and Nino have collaborated on a large-scale production of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin with five actors and over thirty puppets, a co-production between the Marjanishvili Theatre and the Mercury Theatre Colchester directed by Levan Tsuladze. That team is now reunited for this production with the addition of bestselling classical guitarist Craig Ogden who travelled to Georgia to record the soundtrack during the rehearsals in Tbilisi.

Tickets are £13.00 and concessions £11.50 (a £1.50 booking fee is applicable per transaction, except for cash and debit card payments made in person). Tickets can be booked online by visiting www.chelmsford.gov.uk/theatres or via the Box Office on 01245 606505.

A Soldier’s Song

A Soldier’s Song comes to the Cramphorn

Commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War and one of the hits of the 2012 Edinbrugh Festival, A Soldier's Song is a true story of conflict told by a guy who was there, bringing the battlefield to the stage in an extraordinary work of theatre. It comes to Chelmsford Civic Theatre on Friday 8 March.

The Falklands Conflict happened 30 years ago. It was dubbed "Britain's last colonial war". Maggie Thatcher, mired in political turmoil at home, sent 5000 troops 8000 miles down to the bottom of the world to reclaim a tiny pair of islands at the southern tip of South America colonised by less than 1000 British Subjects which had been 'illegally' invaded by Argentina.

The conflict lasted only two months, but encapsulated everything that war is; the failed politics, the military build up, the epic voyage, the beach landings, sinking of ships, artillery strewn battlefields, grenades and bayonets, the heroism, the horror and the tragedy. Britain's victory saved Thatcher's premiership and secured Conservative supremacy for 15 more years, but left hundreds of soldiers with the deep scars of war, the loss of comrades, and a lifetime of Post Traumatic Stress. But, the Falklands victory also epitomized the fortitude of the Great British Tommy, and remains a potent source of national pride.

Ken Lukowiak was there - a lowly infantryman in 2 Para - at the beach landings at San Carlos, the famous pitched battle at Goose Green, the death of Colonel H Jones, the sinking of the Galahad in Fitzroy, and at the liberation of Port Stanley. He saw it all. A decade, suffering from post traumatic stress, he penned his memoirs as an act of catharsis. They were snapped up and published in acclaimed article for the Guardian Weekend Magazine in 1992 from which he was commissioned to write his book - A Soldier's Song. It was a best seller and Ken then started a new career as a renowned war correspondent.

In 1998, Guy Masterson adapted the book for the stage and toured the show globally over three years to widespread acclaim. Now, 12 years on, commemorating the 30th anniversary, Lukowiak himself will now take on the role of his life and tell his own story' and say it like it was.

This is the theatre of War in its facets, invoking the horror, terror, shame, black humour, futility and tedium of a soldier's life on the front line and the lingering effects of Post Traumatic Stress. Deeply disturbing and frightening at times, it utilises a pounding, totally authentic multi-directional soundscape. It is also extremely funny, the dark "squaddie" humour offsetting the darkness. The brutal demotic language and reality of the battlefield is brought to vividly to life.

An ex-Paratrooper stands in a spotlight and transports the audience back to the Falklands War. Surrounded by pounding sound effects (using authentic ordnance) from four sources all around the theatre, the audience are in the middle of the action. Ken Lukowiak leads us from the landing, through the pitched artillery battles, surviving friendly fire, rescuing enemy soldiers, freezing to death in ice filled trenches to the raising of the Union Jack in Port Stanley.

Incredibly powerful language, often poetic and heightened, spoken by the very soldier that wrote the words. The issues of war and what it is like to be there are brought to the fore. This piece of heart-felt theatre also touches on the politics of war, death, dealing with fear and terror.

There will be a post show discussion with Ken Lukowiak after the production

Tickets are £13.00 and concessions £11.00. Tickets can be booked online at www.chelmsford.gov.uk/theatres or call the Box Office on 01245 606505.